Saturday, August 23, 2014

I nmitten Ukraine crisis, the RWE Group may sell its oil and gas division Dea to a Russian-controlled funds. The Federal Ministry of Economics have the business “under active consideration and no objection is raised,” said a spokeswoman for the department in Berlin on Friday. The controversial change of ownership is to bring the debt RWE Group over five billion euros.

RWE had announced the sale plans in March. Dea was to be sold by year-end for 5.1 billion euros at the Luxembourg-based fund Letter One. The fund is controlled by Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman of Alfa Group. The Ministry of Economy is not initiated in mid-June a review of the business in order to determine whether it “public order and security of Germany” hazardous.

Security of supply affects

The main reason for the positive test result was that the buyer had its headquarters in the EU, the ministry spokeswoman said on Friday. An impairment of the security of supply in Germany is not expected

According to the Ministry Dea has only a small share of the energy supply in Germany -. During oil there are around one percent, while gas is about two percent. At the local gas storage Dea had a share of about 1.8 percent. The EU Commission has reviewed and approved the deal under antitrust law. A total of 14 governments have to release the transaction – all, in which Dea has exploration licenses for oil or gas. These included the UK, Norway, Egypt and Libya.

Deal directly after the announcement criticized

The business could the RWE Group in reducing its debt mountain of around 30 billion euros help as well as investments to adapt to the changed energy policy in Germany and Europe. The deal was already advised directly after the announcement in the criticism, especially because of the Ukraine crisis and the Western sanctions against Russia.

On the approval by the Federal Government, the Greens parliamentary leader Katrin Göring reacted -Eckardt with new criticism. The sale of Dea to the “-Kremlin Russian oligarchs” Fridmann give Russian President Vladimir Putin “more opportunities to put Europe and Germany over gas and oil supplies under pressure,” she said of the “world”. “Energy policy is security policy” – this will be ignored by the federal government